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Robin Williams

Robin Williams brought the instincts of a stand-up comedian and the training of a stage actor to the screen, creating performances that could move from rapid-fire invention to quiet vulnerability without losing their human center. Born in Chicago on July 21, 1951, he studied theater at the College of Marin before receiving a scholarship to Juilliard. He left during his junior year and began performing stand-up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where improvisation became a defining part of his work. His first starring film performance came as the title character in Popeye in 1980. The movies that followed quickly showed that his energy could serve more than straightforward comedy. Moscow on the Hudson gave him the role of a Russian musician who defects to the United States, while Good Morning, Vietnam turned his gift for voices and improvisation into the engine of a wartime comedy-drama. Dead Poets Society and Awakenings drew on a more restrained side of his acting, proving how effective he could be when the performance depended on patience, empathy and silence. Williams was equally at home in stories that made room for fantasy. He played an adult Peter Pan in Hook, Alan Parrish in Jumanji and a divorced father disguised as a nanny in Mrs. Doubtfire. Yet even his broadest family movies often carried an undercurrent of sadness or longing. That balance was central to The Fisher King, in which his troubled homeless character earned Williams an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In Good Will Hunting, his performance as a therapist brought that emotional directness fully to the foreground and earned him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Later appearances included the holographic Dr. Know in A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Theodore Roosevelt in Night at the Museum. Across comedy, drama and fantasy, Williams rarely seemed interested in choosing between laughter and pain. His best screen work understood how closely the two can sit together—and how quickly one can reveal the other.